Brexit is the biggest act of economic suicide in the history of commerce

Brexit is the biggest act of economic suicide in the history of commerce, with the latest news that Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble has said that we would not have access to the single market if we were to leave the EU (that sounds like common sense doesn't it? If you leave something you don't have access to it!) where are we to trade? Even the couple of counties that do have access to the single market whilst not in the EU have to agree to the free movement of travel for people wishing to work there, and many other EU rules that Brexit says it wants to do away with.

Brexit has no economic plan, it has no idea and on this basis, the British People are being asked to trust the likes of Boris Johnson and Micheal Gove, that everything will be alright.
No electorate would vote a party into government on the basis of such a flimsy (ie no) economic plan. At the time of the election, I don't remember a great clamour from the public for a referendum on Europe, that came from a small clutch of hard right Tory MP's. I seem to remember that the election was clinched on the current governments economic plan, as awful as it was. If that is so, then if Brexit was to happen, how could this Tory government have a mandate to rule?

If Brexit wins it will be based on a xenophobic mistrust that would be a waste of time because this is a world were people move to work. Raising borders around our Island would be like demanding the sea not lap on our shores. It is not refugees or Europe who have devastated the NHS, it is not refugees or Europe who have created our housing crisis, it is not refugees or Europe, who have destroyed Local Government, it is not refugees or Europe, who starve disabled people and drive them to suicide, I could go on and on but I won't, you know what I am saying, it is this...

The enemy is in our midst, it is the current Tories, and successive governments before them fed by a culture nurtured by Rupert Murdoch to see only the worst in people and undermining the belief in co-operation and solidarity. On 4 January 1981 in a secret meeting with Margret Thatcher, she allowed him to own 40% of British Newspapers and since then we have not been able to have an free and balanced political debate in this country. So it finally comes to this, call this a debate? This country is planned to be remade, but not for the likes of you and me. Under the gise of Brexit, their encouragement of the suspension of disbelief, of the idea of the wings of freedom from Europe, lies just below the feathers, the chains that will bind us all, at the feet of the powerful. 

Colin Dredd lives on via his NME collection

Happy New Year to you all. A little bit of good news from the end of last year I didn't have time to post. Really pleased that Colin's memory is being preserved in this way, he would have been so pleased about this.

The Eighties were a really significant decade and it will be great that students will be able to get an insight into those turbulent times via the effect that politics were having on Music and Arts at the time.

25 November 2015
Re. New Musical Express 1980s: The Colin Dredd Collection
...

We would like to thank you for your very kind and generous donation of ‘New Musical Express: The Colin Dredd Collection’ to the Archives of Popular Culture/Counterculture at Liverpool John Moores University.

The Archives of Popular Culture/Counterculture were established over ten years ago and currently house a world-class repository - including the world’s largest Punk archive. ‘New Musical Express: The Colin Dredd Collection’ makes a significant addition to the repository and will be preserved in perpetuity alongside the other archives. The collection will be made accessible and will be of great benefit to current and future generations of researchers, staff and students.

We would like to invite you to visit the archive anytime you are in Liverpool and we would be pleased to meet you for lunch and show you around the various collections.

Thank you for this wonderful addition to the Archives of Popular Culture/Counterculture at Liverpool John Moores University.

Yours sincerely,
Prof. Colin Fallows
Professor of Sound and Visual Arts
Dr. Sian Lincoln
Senior Lecturer in Media Studies

The power of words (Part 2)

If you have been following my posts recently you would have seen one titled 'The power of words'

In it I point out the way George Osborne describes Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as  'Left Wing Insurgents' so as to create the perception of a decent, principled and compassionate man (and his supporters who have been blamed by Tony Blair of having a heart!!!) into that of an armed rebellion trying to overthrow a legitimate government by illegitimate means.

Nonsense of course, but the point is, he is attempting to change reality for his own ends.
All politicians do this (I can almost hear you say) but...there is a difference with interpretation of an aim or act and the deliberate distortion of this sort.

It happened again the other day when Bombing Syria was being discussed in the Commons.

Cameron this time said that anyone who disagreed with the airstrikes on Syria was a terrorist sympathiser. This outrageous claim was a crude attempt to close down discussion on the matter, and clearly shows that whatever reasoned arguments he had for killing Syrians, they were not (even in his mind) robust enough to stand on their own. But let's think about what he was actually saying.

That if we disagree with the bombing, then we are terrorist sympathisers, which therefore implies that the only people to get killed in the airstrikes will be terrorists (which is clearly not true).

So he is saying, there is no real opposition to the airstrikes in Britain, except from terrorist sympathisers and they are a threat as they are trying to stop us killing the terrorists in Syria.

Ok, now squeezed out of this warped logic are the ordinary British people who do not think that killing more innocent people is going to help and on the Syrian side the innocent people caught up in this have been left out too, their deaths not considered important by our government.

Logic goes out of the window, innocent people are slaughtered in Paris and our response is to slaughter another lot of innocent people in the hope of hitting a terrorist and then claim we have the moral high ground. This to me, it is no more that 'tit for tat' poorly disguised as 'doing something' to stop Isis, Isil or whoever. The same thing has being going on for months in Iraq and Afghanistan without any significant disruption of the enemy.

The people who voted for this should be taken to see the results of waging war from an armchair, see how their point scoring in parliament results in a hell they obviously cannot conceive anything of. They must comfort themselves that, as they have never actually held a weapon in their hands that they have never been responsible for the deaths of anyone. If so, they clearly do not understand power or their place within it. 

I am not a pacifist and I  want theses fascists to be stopped with force, killed if necessary but not by carpet bombing everyone around them. This is a complex problem that requires a more comprehensive and intelligent approach to end the terror of Isis. Cameron's knee jerk reaction just shows that he has no idea what to do to counter this jihadi threat but he knows that the easy option is to just throw a few bombs at the problem. The arms industry are always close to government making sure they have the weapons of their desire at their disposal and once bought, need to be used. Running low, forget new hospitals or any other public service, divert that money to more weapons, government does it's bombing, government looks tough, job done.

They can then claim they have acted to secure the safety of the British people.

All that Is left is to get ready with propaganda when the reaction to that is bloody atrocities on civilians in this country.

But, as we are all terrorists now, what does it matter?

Do they know it's Christmas?

With Christmas about to engulf us all, it has been on my mind about the plight of the Syrian refugees many of which will be spending life in a different type of hell in refugee camps around Europe with barely anything between them and the unthinkable.

So this is Christmas eh? Do they know it?

With the news services dominated on whether or not to bomb more of the Syrian population, it is our turn it seems to show our brand of barbarism. ...
With that in mind and a feeling that I want to do something (non-violent) no matter how small, I just wanted to suggest that all profits from my Christmas CD single this year, should you wish to buy it from here http://steve-drewett.com/steve-drewett/physical.html… will be donated to one of the Charities put forward by the Guardian Syrian appeal. If you want to donate and not buy the single that is fine too and you will find the links below to help you do so.

http://www.theguardian.com/…/guardian-and-observer-refugee-…

let’s turn to love not hate!

Vive la Rock!

I can imagine that for Islamic extremists, because the west trumpets democracy all the time and we vote in our murderous leaders, they think we are responsible for what they do, as these politicians are our elective representatives. This seems to make some sense, but it ignores just how truly unrepresentative our democracy is now and the fact that millions marched to try to stop the invasion of Iraq. Our political representatives are letting us down and we have now run out of... choices.

What were once wars of proxy fought by our so called leaders in far away lands are now being fought in our streets and the winners are the arms manufacturers including those wined and dined in the Tower of London directly after the First World War remembrance 'Poppy' exhibition. All conflicts are now lethal (and very profitable) all acts political. The Islamic State has now declared war on rock music, think of that for a moment. Laughingly (not!) that means that I play the devils music, that I play music that is evil? What sort of warped logic makes the murder of innocent people good and playing and enjoying music evil?

See you at the next gig!

Vive la Rock!

The power of words!

Language and words are very powerful things, from Murdoch's newspapers to the way the Tory Government frames an argument, it is used to control perception of the world to the needs of the powerful elite.
This is not new, the frequently used example is the way strikers 'demand' and bosses 'plead'. These two words frame the argument in favour of perception being on the bosses side.
Today George Osborne called Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters 'Left Wing Insurgents'. In doing this he is trying to turn the perception of a decent, principled and compassionate man (and his supporters who have been blamed by Tony Blair of having a heart!!!) into the perception of an armed rebellion trying to overthrow a legitimate government by illegitimate means.

This is not an insurgency! It is a profoundly legitimate democratic process and is offering an alternative view of how this country could be run. But to this government, ideas are dangerous and are to be considered as lethal as a weapon.

As I say, language and words are very powerful things.

For those of us that believe in Corbyn's alternative view, lets re-frame the argument, our vocabulary is our arsenal, lets change the perception of what we can achieve for the common good.
Let us turn our anger to persuasion and build a grass roots movement committed to winning the argument and creating a government that serves the people and not the other way round.

Newtown Neurotics 'Triumph Over Adversity' One of the greatest live albums ever? Discuss!

It is so hard for me to relate to you how good 'Triumph Over Adversity' is (for those of you who have not already bought it). If I tell you what I really feel about the album, I will just come over to you as vain, conceited and perhaps delusional and this is the problem!

How do I convince you? With just words!

How do I get you past that "yeah, yeah it's a live album yawn, live albums are boring" feeling?

I know that an artist/band can truly believe that they have just released their best album ever, only to find that their audience turns their backs on it. But I also believe that there are times when the artist/band knows, that what they have done is something special, and it really is, and that is then echoed back by others.

Today, I found out that 'Triumph Over Adversity' has seven 5 star reviews on Amazon, and the latest one says everything I'd ever thought would come across to anyone, who cast aside their doubts and made the purchase (and no, it wasn't written by me under a pseudonym, would I do that to you?).

Personally, I think that 'Triumph Over Adversity' is the greatest album the Newtown Neurotics have ever put out.

This is what a reviewer on Amazon thought...

PASSION, ENERGY, INTEGRITY, TENACITY - GET BLOWN AWAY BY THE NEUROTICS
By uktoady on 24 July 2015

"I’m not always a big fan of live albums – much of the joy of listening to a band playing live is actually being there, at the gig, being part of the crowd, immersed in the atmosphere – and it’s difficult to capture that in a recording. However, with the insight gleaned from Steve Drewett’s candid sleeve notes, recounting the background to this particular gig and the exceptional circumstances under which they went on to perform, you are taken into that University hall and you are there, with the Neurotics…

From the opening chords of Wake Up (surely one of the best intros ever – and what a way to open a gig!), you can hear and feel the angst and frustration being vented – a seething torrent of guitars, drums and vocals delivered with an urgency and energy that grabs you and carries you along with the force of tsunami!

The sound quality is amazing considering the low-tech way it was recorded. Steve Drewett is at his impassioned best - his words are from the heart and it is impossible not to be affected, whether it is listening to his vocals and lyrics, or reading his sleeve notes … what he so brilliantly manages to convey is direct, honest, raw emotion – and you know he means every word. Simon Lomond’s beat-perfect drumming leaves you breathless with its intensity, all the while driving and holding each number together, while the chance to hear again the late Colin Dredd’s bass and backing vocals is a privilege in itself – and a reminder of how well the three of them worked together. The unity and closeness of the band shines through.

This is music that deserves to be heard – and should be heard. It has so much more value and sincerity than some of the contrived, cultivated pop fodder so often served up today – and with the Newtown Neurotics still relevant and active today, (with Steve and Simon joined by bassist Adam Smith), you might be lucky enough to catch them at one of their (sadly, all-too-rare) appearances.

Meantime, if you want to hear – and feel - the pounding heart of the Newtown Neurotics, then just listen to this!"

Triumph Over Adversity can be bought via Amazon or if you want to avoid Amazon,directly from the band (whose prices include the p&p) at
http://steve-drewett.com/neurotics/mailordr.htm

5 star reviews of 'Triumph Over Adversity' on Amazon